Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day020.02
Last-Modified: 2000/07/24
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Professor Evans, this is a point at
which I think you ought to join in, if I can put it like
that. I think, Mr Irving, the point he made yesterday is right?
A. It is right, yes, indeed.
MR IRVING: Is it right to say that I, therefore, did not
double the death roll by means of the comparison, in
fact? I adhered to a death roll in Hamburg of up to or
nearly 50,000?
A. That is right, yes.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Not, I think, your error, but Professor
Eatwell's?
A. It looks like it, my Lord.
MR IRVING: My Lord, the problem is Professor Evans' report has
turned out to be a bit of a dummy minefield. I am
advancing into it, but very gingerly, because I do not
know where the real mines are and where the dummies are
like that one, and this is what is delaying us.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not sure I accept any of that, but let
us move on anyway. We have got to about 100?
MR IRVING: 128, my Lord, is where I propose to continue,
my
Lord. I am on 128 at paragraph 4, Professor Evans.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: You are still on the topic of Holocaust
denial, are you not?
MR IRVING: We are, my Lord, and we are dealing just
briefly
with the experiment made with the gas vans. Your
Lordship
. P-10
was concerned that I described this as an experiment
in
view of the large numbers. So Professor Evans has
quoted
me as saying, "So I accept that this kind of
experiment
was made on a very limited scale". Do you agree that
there was, in fact, an experiment, Professor Evans,
the
use of the gas vans for a limited period of months on
the
Eastern Front and elsewhere?
A. You go on to say: "But, I don't accept that the gas
chambers existed, and this is well known. I've seen
no
evidence at all that gas chambers existed". So what I
am
saying there in that quotation is that you say that
gassing took place on a very limited scale,
experimental
scale, but, as you say, it was rapidly abandoned as
being
a totally inefficient way of killing people.
Q. Yes.
A. I understand that during the trial you have now
admitted
that that was wrong, that it was, that gassing was not
merely used on a limited experimental scale.
Q. You are overlooking the use of loaded words like
"conceded" and "admitted". Do you accept that,
therefore, the gas vans were used as an experimental
basis
for killing, and that they were abandoned then for
whatever reason afterwards?
A. No, I do not. They were used for killing on a large
scale, as I think----
Q. Did they continue using them throughout the war or did
. P-11
they stop?
A. There was a transition to mainly using gas chambers,
but
they were used on far more than a limited scale, as
I believe you yourself have said in the course of this
trial.
Q. Looking purely at the word "experimental" at this
point,
you have agreed that Professor Burrin, the Swiss
Professor
is something of an expert. He is not an extremist or
what
you call a Holocaust denier.
A. That is so, yes.
Q. I just put to you one sentence from his standard work
on
this. This is on page 112 of Philip Burrin: "The gas
truck had been an improvised response to a situation
no
one had foreseen or imagined". Would you agree with
that?
A. I would have to see the whole passage. I find it
difficult to comment simply on a single sentence taken
out
of that. In any case, the context of this section of
my
report is concerned with your denial that gas chambers
existed, that gas chambers were used. That is the
context.
Q. Before we move on, just a simple answer. You do
accept
therefore that the gas vans were used and then
abandoned
at some stage as a means of killing?
A. Well, yes. In the end of course the gas chambers were
abandoned as a means of killing when they had
fulfilled
their purpose. I do not accept----
. P-12
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I just want to see where we
are
going occasionally.
MR IRVING: That was the end of that.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: At an earlier stage in this case --
correct
me if I am recollecting wrongly -- you were presented
with a document which indicated that at Chelmno 97,000
Jews were killed in five weeks.
MR RAMPTON: Five months, my Lord.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: I agree you did not accept that figure
was
correct, but I believe you did accept in terms that
the
gas vans were not used on a solely experimental basis
but
were used for the systematic killing of substantial
numbers of Jews.
MR IRVING: They were. I do not agree that they were used
only
at Chelmno. They were certainly used once at Chelmno
because there was an explosion there, but there is no
evidence they were used only there.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: I did not say "only there". I am using
that
as an illustration of what I had understood you to
have
accepted earlier in this case.
MR IRVING: I am trying to justify the use of the word
"experimental" by the virtue of the fact that other
historians of reputation have also described this as
being
an interim phase and it was abandoned, as it proved
not to
be a very feasible or practical way of doing things.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: That may be rather a different thing from
. P-13
saying it is experimental, but there we are.
MR IRVING: I think that you had fastened on the word
"experimental" as being something repugnant in this
particular connection and I can appreciate that, but I
was
just trying to establish what was meant by the word
"experimental".
Can we now proceed to paragraph 6 on the
same
page 128, where we are talking about the subsequent
Polish
tests which attempted to replicate the Leuchter tests.
You say that I allege that there was a refusal of the
authorities to call for site examinations and that
forensic tests were carried out by the Poles, but the
results were suppressed". Is that correct in the last
four lines on page 128?
A. Yes.
Q. Are you suggesting that I have got it wrong somehow?
A. In this paragraph I am trying to sum up your views as
succinctly as I can.
Q. Do you accept that the Poles did carry out tests and
suppress them?
A. No, I do not. I have to say I am not an expert on
Auschwitz and there has been a separate, as I call
attention to at the top of the next page 130, expert
witness report by Professor van Pelt, who is an expert
on
Auschwitz, who goes into this in very great detail.
Q. Yes. So we will not dwell very long on this, but
would
. P-14
you go to page 56 of the little bundle, which is the
first
page of the Polish report I am referring to. We are
going
to look at two dates on it.
A. Yes.
Q. It is a Polish document. I am told that the date at
the
top in Polish means 24th September 1990, and that is
the
date that the report was submitted by this Polish
Institute to the museum at Auschwitz, as you can see
in
the address line on the top right quarter. If you
look in
the rubber stamp box, can you see a date on the final
line?
A. Indeed, 11.10.1990.
Q. Did the Polish State authority, the Auschwitz
authorities,
at any time thereafter publish that report, or did it
sit
in their safe for some months and years?
A. I am not an expert on this subject. I cannot really
comment. I think probably, if one consulted Professor
van
Pelt's report, one would be able to clear that up.
Q. You spent a whole page -- again on the foot of page
129
you say that Irving went on to claim that Dr Piper, in
other words the Auschwitz State Museum, had suppressed
the
fact and filed the report away.
A. Yes, I say that.
Q. You disqualify the Leuchter report in your view. I
have
to ask you these questions because it is said that I
have
relied on the Leuchter report and that this was an
. P-15
unjustifiable act of a responsible historian.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: You do not have to ask these questions.
I
have already indicated that on Auschwitz -- I know it
is
referred to in Professor Evans' report -- it does not
appear to me that, if I may respectfully say so,
Professor
Evans' opinions really bulk very large. I think that
is
really Professor van Pelt. So do not feel you have to
ask
these questions.
MR IRVING: I would like to ask him purely then about one
matter. Is it right that you suggest that the report
was
not admitted as evidence at the Toronto trial, and
that
this in some way discredits the report?
A. No, I cannot see that in my report. I say it was
discredited at the Zundel trial in 1988. That is my
understanding, having read some of the transcripts of
the
trial.
Q. Was the report actually admitted as evidence of the
Zundel
trial?
MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think we know it was, do we not? We
can
move on.
MR IRVING: The point that I am trying to make, my Lord, is
that I have had considerable dealings overnight with
the
Canadian solicitors involved in that action who
confirmed
to me -- I just put the essential three lines of their
letter to you. The solicitor Barbara Kulaska has
written
to me saying that the Leuchter report itself was not
filed
. P-16
as an exhibit for the sole reason that such
engineering
reports are not generally admissible under Canadian
rules
of evidence unless the other side consents.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: I treat that with a certain amount of
scepticism. The evidence up to now is that it was not
admitted in evidence at the Zundel trial because it
was
not accepted that Leuchter was suitably qualified as
an
expert.
MR IRVING: My Lord, with the utmost respect, I have to say
that I have a very large bundle here now which
contains
the actual transcript on that matter between the
prosecution and the defence and the court in Toronto.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Shall we put that on one side? I do not
suppose Mr Rampton has had a chance to look at what
you
are referring to me at the moment. At any rate, let
us
got on with Professor Evans. I am not shutting you
out
from adducing that evidence.
MR IRVING: I am prepared to make this transcript available
to
the Defence in this matter.
MR RAMPTON: I have the transcript. I used it in
cross-examination of Mr Irving. It is perfectly clear
the
judge would not admit Mr Leuchter as an expert.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: What you have not seen is what Mr Irving
is
relying on from the Canadian lawyers giving an
entirely
different reason why.
MR RAMPTON: I have seen it. There is a one page letter
. P-17
I think in this new bundle.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: What I am suggesting is that Mr Irving
follows this up later.
MR RAMPTON: Yes, I agree. I attach no weight to what the
lawyer says at all.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Rather than now.
MR IRVING: Whether Mr Rampton attaches weight to it or not
is
neither here nor there. In that case I shall put it
to
your Lordship by way of submission later on.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Would you mind.
MR IRVING: At page 130 line 8 you say that my arguments
derive
from previous work from well-known Holocaust deniers,
and
then you mention some.
A. Yes.
Q. Professor Faurisson. . Are you familiar with the
expertise of Germar Rudolf?
A. I mention Faurisson there. I do not mention Rudolf
there.
Q. I can make this very brief. Can you accept that there
are
a number of other documentary bases on which I base my
arguments, for example the air photographs as
interpreted
by a man called John Ball?
A. It is clear I think that in the documents that I cite
you
do rely heavily upon Faurisson, whose work you did
read in
the late 1980s, as you recall in your diary.
Q. Which works of Professor Faurisson do you allege that
I read?
. P-18
A. It was an article in your diary entry of 26th July
1986.
You wrote "Faurisson's paper on Auschwitz set me
thinking
very hard." I presume that is an article that he
published or a paper that he gave to you.
Q. Are you suggesting that he is my only source, the only
basis of my arguments that I do not rely----
A. No, I am not. I give that as an example there.
Q. When is set thinking very hard, as no doubt you have
also
been occasionally made to think very hard, you then
start
looking at other sources to see how one should finally
align one's own political or scientific or historical
viewpoint.
A. Yes. I say here that it derives from previous work by
well-known Holocaust deniers such as Faurisson.
Q. Would you call Professor Hinsley a well-known Holocaust
denier?
A. I do not think that these arguments, the arguments are
derived -- you misuse Professor Hinsley's material in your work.

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